Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 10.75
…strategy.” While not a CapRock customer, Pharris noted that Amazon has a small fulfillment center in Orange County, where his office is located. “I’m in Newport Beach, surrounded by 7-to-15 story office buildings, and in the midst of that, there’s this small building where Amazon stores the top 500 SKUs bought in Orange County,” Pharris said. “I’m shocked that more Fortune 500 and big box retailers aren’t doing that strategy.” The buildings don’t just take up a smaller footprint. Instead of 30+-foot ceilings, some of the buildings Pharris is working on are just 12 feet high, without conventional pallet racking.…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.58
…the embedded intelligence required to take advantage of machine learning and other developments. Related: Should Retail Stores Tackle “the Amazon effect”? Related White Papers Using Automation to Manage Growth in E-commerce Fulfillment Robotic-based automation solutions enable the flexibility to effectively manage both seasonal and sustained growth. Download Now!
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.93
…inventory systems powered by drones and autonomous ground vehicles. Amazon has already forged a path in this area with its highly automated distribution centers. 4. AI can improve supplier selection and increase the effectiveness of supplier relationship management “Supplier-related risks are a major consideration for logistics professionals,” says Darrin Mackay, a logistics expert at A-Writer. “Just one mistake on the part of a supplier, and a company’s reputation can be damaged significantly.” AI can analyze supplier-related data such as on-time in-full delivery performance, audits, evaluations, and credit scoring and provide information to use for future decisions regarding certain suppliers. As…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.02
…the XPO Direct shared-space distribution network, voice integration with Amazon Echo and Google Home to track the last mile delivery of heavy goods, and the XPO Connect digital freight marketplace with multimodal infrastructure. As reported by FreightWaves, XPO has worked with 29 robotics companies and deployed 79 different types of robots across its warehouses. Other XPO robotics vendors include Massachusetts-based 6 River Systems, which has deployed more than 100 robots for XPO; and KUKA Group's Swisslog, which is said to be providing the robotics for the digital warehouse XPO is building in the U.K. for Nestle. It was unclear whether…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.90
…from Michael Kors, Canadian Tire, Geodis and a former Amazon and Walmart executive. Finding that key partner in the organization who can be a champion for the project remains elusive, as does getting the attention of senior decision makers. But, the labor issue came up in this session as well. Brock Eckles, director of strategic solutions for the 3PL Geodis, noted that a large consumer electronics company that is one of his clients has made a decision to invest heavily in automation because they can no longer fight the war over associates. Ron Kyslinger, a former Walmart SVP, argued that…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.22
…in robotics in their warehouses and distribution centers, with Amazon leading the way. Vision and computer guided robots are performing storage and handling activities such as loading, unloading, putaway and retrieval functions. Autonomous robots travel untethered among storage racks in a distribution center and move up and down aisles to stack and retrieve cases. They coordinate with more-conventional robots that perform simpler tasks to enable fulfilment. We’re even seeing camera-mounted drones being used to take inventory in the warehouse. Kroger, Walmart, Macy’s, Target and Coca-Cola are just a few leading companies that are testing and investing in the next generation…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 13.04
…reported by Rob Smith, National Retail Reporter, CoStar Group, Amazon, the online innovator that changed retailing, now has plans for a futuristic airborne fulfillment center where it would use drones to deliver goods. The e-commerce giant was granted a patent for the concept last month, and it has another pending for a vertical warehouse that looks more like a skyscraper than a distribution center. The cutting-edge ideas show how far developers may have to go to address the growing demand for industrial space as more Americans shop online. Already, the first multistory warehouses in the U.S. are scheduled to open…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.48
…commercial adoption than AMRs. Kiva, which was acquired by Amazon in 2013, was a pioneer of autonomous mobile robots for goods to man picking. The Kiva robots rely on people to unbox items and put them in bins on shelves that are later delivered to workers who pick products. Newer AMRs from companies like Locus Robotics can also travel to pick locations where they meet workers who pick and place items on the robots (robot-to-goods picking, as opposed to goods-to-man). The symbiotic relationship between workers and robots has given rise to a new term, collaborative robots or cobots. Cobots complement…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.94
…the scaling e-commerce market. “To compete with behemoths like Amazon, warehouse automation is critical for e-commerce companies; but the overhead cost of purchasing a fleet of robots is often beyond reach,” said Lior Elazary, founder and CEO of inVia Robotics. “We’re excited to have this funding to fuel the growth of our subscription-based RaaS technology to optimize warehouse performance and increase productivity for our customers.” The inVia Picker robot works collaboratively alongside human workers to completely eliminate the need for operators to walk around the warehouse. This allows human workers to concentrate on more complex tasks like picking and quality…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.79
…his production team “into a mystery room at the Amazon offices and revealed a secret R&D project: ‘Octocopter’ drones that will fly packages directly to your doorstep in 30 minutes.” Faster than you can say “same day delivery,” drones were the buzzword du jour at supply chain conferences, much like RFID following the infamous Walmart mandate about a decade earlier. Given the number of e-commerce deliveries every day in my neighborhood in a small town in New Hampshire, I sometimes imagined the sky blackened with Amazon drones, like a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. And then? Well, at least…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.09
…a pioneer in goods-to-person robotics that was acquired by Amazon). “We are a drop-in replacement for cart picking that is a full-system solution,” explains Jerome Dubois, co-founder of 6 River Systems. “We not only do the transport, we are the pick station, we are the put-to-light, we are the scanner, and the aisle manager functions. Everything is contained within our robot.” 6 River’s software can integrate with a warehouse management system to get order information, and with that data, it figures out the most efficient work assignments for each robot or “Chuck” as they are called. The software then sends…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.86
…their bad habits.” Jindel adds that demographics, e-commerce and Amazon have permanently changed LTL market dynamics, which aren’t going back to the old days any time soon. “The LTL sector will continue to remain tight and favorable to carriers until autonomous vehicles are embraced by society and lawmakers,” he says. “Until then, it’s Christmas time for the LTL industry.” Indeed, LTL carriers can already hear Christmas bells ringing in data of their financial charts. Revenue per hundredweight jumped 3.7% year-over-year in the first quarter with tonnage up a whopping 4.7%. That would indicate a shifting of heavier freight shipments from…